


feels clear

by vexedcer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), cos im sappy and i love them, is it a fixit fic? i think so, steve and bucky go home, thats a good tag, theyre leaving wakanda. theyre finally going home.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 22:23:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14554803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: It feels final, somehow, like the draw of the curtain or the last bow. An end of some kind, but Bucky doesn’t know what.(post-battle, bucky says goodbye to t'challa and shuri.)





	feels clear

**Author's Note:**

> this was based on [a lil thread story on twitter that i tweeted out](https://twitter.com/vexedcer/status/992522205773824001) and ended up rlly loving.
> 
> also thank u to alex for reading thro it even though it's 5am and we've both being up all night, love u my dude.

It’s hot.

It’s almost always hot here, Bucky knows, since he’s been here for two years - but it’s more like six months in waking time, coming on and off the ice for periods while the team dug around inside his head. Much less invasive than HYDRA, but unpleasant all the same. It’s worth it now for the fact that his brain feels clear for the first time since - maybe before the war, before he got his orders, and Steve was five foot nothing, and a loaf of bread cost ten cents. 

He doesn’t want to think too deeply about it, and god knows he’s spent a lot of time lying awake at night trying not to in the outer village he stayed in when they were almost positive they got all the junk out of his head. They wanted him to try and reenter society, and keep him busy - he was grateful for the distraction of farming and joking with the kids during the day, but at night he couldn’t turn off the reel of memories he still felt a distinct disconnection from.

But he’s getting better - he recalled the murder of a dignitary a day after the battle ended and didn’t shatter the glass of water he was holding, which is definitely an improvement he thinks. Steve told him it was anyways.

Steve stands in the ragged worn suit with the star missing a few feet away - enough that it gives a semblance of privacy as Bucky says goodbye to T’Challa and Shuri, but he knows that he can most likely hear every word.

T’Challa is clutching his hand in two of his, his face warm and smiling faintly as they shake. “You will always have a place in Wakanda, my friend,” he promises sincerely, and Bucky has never been more grateful for everything the now-king has done for him out of his own kindness. Steve told him, when they finally had a second to breathe after the battle, fed and showered and slept, in the privacy of the rooms the king kindly provided them with to recuperate, about how T’Challa wanted to help him find peace.

He isn’t quite there yet, but now he thinks he could be one day.

He lets go of T’Challa’s hand and turns to thank Shuri again, for his new arm (which is both lighter on his body and on his mind) and for the work she did to aid the team with his triggers even if she wasn’t working with him directly. Before he can get the words out though, Shuri has thrown her arms around him in a tight hug.

He startles and waits for the Soldier to hiss in the back of his mind, rattle under his skin the way it did in Bucharest whenever anyone stood too close, but it never comes. Instead, he wraps both arms around her back after a second, ever careful of his arm because even if it’s not  _ theirs _ (HYDRA, the Soviets, whatever terrorist organisation hired him from his handlers) it’s still a big hard thing and he’s a bit clunky after going without for a while. It feels nice to be unpolished at something, feel the skills wear away. It means he hasn’t used it, hasn’t  _ had  _ to use it. 

It feels good.

She’s the first person to hug him other than Steve in a long time. He thinks the last time  _ before _ was when the nightmares got bad in the weeks after Azzano, and Steve curled up against his back with both of their limbs spilling out of a single cot too small for even one of them. It was too warm and uncomfortable but god, did it help keep Bucky’s head on straight - until it didn’t.

There was a war to fight, and he didn’t need coddling. He thinks then that he understands why Steve was so resistant to Bucky’s protection for all those years - the difference is that dumbass actually did need help, but Bucky was fine,  _ okay, Steve, I’m fine - _

Shuri is still hugging him and the whole thing has lasted less than a few seconds, but Bucky’s mind is reeling with all the things he wants to say.

The thing is, he used to be good with words - smooth, suave, quick, but after everything, his brain is like swiss cheese. He wants to thank her for the arm, and the triggers, but also for not pitying him when he had breakdowns during sessions of deprogramming because god knows he’s had enough of them, and the nights where he wandered into her lab late and she let him watch her build stuff he can’t begin to understand.

And not to mention the fight - she’s a strong girl, and Bucky knows the grass beyond the city is ripped up and wrecked, from the fighting and Thor’s lightning and all the blood and dust caked into the clay, her homeland long protected and quickly ruined by all these foreign people. 

She’s pulling away, and saying “You need to come back for upgrades,” and he chuckles as she slaps the back of her hand lightly against the sleeve covered limb, and he’s been around them enough to know the well-worn argument between the siblings about innovation. He may never understand the drive for new tech, but he’s in awe of it all the same.

Steve is still standing to the side, standing at ease, hands linked loosely on his lower back, patient and steady when Bucky finally turns to leave them. 

It feels final, somehow, like the draw of the curtain or the last bow. An end of some kind, but Bucky doesn’t know what. He knows that when they go back they will face questions and consequences, but due to Tony’s good grace and connection, they’ve been granted amnesty and will quietly retire to a big house in upstate New York. With a yard, and a white picket fence, and Steve said that  _ maybe _ they could get a dog, which Bucky knows means they’ll be getting three dogs, maybe four if they’re little. Most of America still thinks they’re war criminals, but with the promise of Steve and as many books as he wants and finally some peace, he doesn’t think he minds so much anymore. 

Steve relaxes from the stance when Bucky reaches his side, and the two fall into line as they make the last stretch towards the quinjets were everyone waits. The small amount of rubble and debris has been brushed off the landing site and out to the edges, but some dust still kicks up under their feet. 

A hand curls into his; warm and rough and big. It’s exactly what Bucky imagined it would be like, back in Brooklyn when he was too broke to go out dancing so he watched Steve draw for hours. It’s also not at all like that, because of the size and the year and the context, because everything is so vastly different that anything Bucky could have fathomed as someone who’d never been further south than the tip of Staten Island, but it’s still perfect the way he thought it’d be, to hold Steve’s hand - at all but especially out in the open.

He looks up at Steve, and he has a hesitant yet hopeful expression, and fuck, Bucky loves this stupid punk, so he just grips tighter for a second, with his own faint smile, and Steve meets him with a grin. Most of the others look on from the jet with varying degrees of well concealed shock, amusement, and in the case of Sam, exasperation - he fishes a twenty out of his pocket and hands it to Natasha.

Tony doesn’t look back at them but closes the rear. Something in Bucky’s chest aches for him; there are many wounds left to heal, and just because Tony managed to sway the government into approving their pardons, doesn’t mean that things are okay between them. There’s still a lot of work to be done.

But for now, they sit down and strap in. It’s going to be a long flight back, so Bucky rests his head on Steve’s shoulder, utterly uncaring of their audience as everyone talks quietly among themselves and finally -  _ finally _ \- gets some peace.

**Author's Note:**

> the working title of this fic ended up being "wakanda GOT a starbucks after all"
> 
> [my main blog](http://vexedcer.tumblr.com/) [my writing blog](http://residentqueer.tumblr.com/) \- come say hello!!


End file.
